Fairy Tales, whether they are familiar or obscure, have always been a staple of children's picture books, but more rarely are addressed by writers of children's juvenile or young adult titles. Three of my favorite juvenile "rewrites" all collectible as fine first editions and worth reading and rereading in any edition are:
Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted. (A Cinderella variation which finally has a logical explanation for why Cinderella was such a wimp. DO NOT watch the movie, read the book!)*
Robin McKinley, Robin. Beauty. (Absolutely the best retelling of this fairy tale, and pretty darn impressive for an author's first book.)
Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard. (Based on Tam Lin, a folksong I was only vaguely aware of before reading the book, even though I've always love stories of fairy folk under the hill.)
Ella Enchanted and Perilous Gard were both Newbery Honor titles and all three books were written in first person, a writing style I'm not usually fond of but one that really works for these stories.
(*as always I'm at my most opinionated when I'm in italics.)
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